Competitions

The role of the Competitions Committee is to manage the structure and rules for all UKU competitions.  The detailed implementation within some divisions (notably University) are delegated to the relevant sub-committee.

In early 2013, as part of an ongoing review of the governance structure of UK Ultimate, the Board updated the Terms of Reference for this committee.  Please review that document for full details. 

The Director of Competitions (Chris Aussie White), University Coordinator (Thomas Daly) and CEO (Si Hill) are standing members of the committee.  The following representative positions are to be elected by the members of UK Ultimate:

• Beach (vacant)
• Indoor (Matt Burton*)
• Juniors (vacant)
• Mixed (Dan Godbold)
• Open (Dave Halls)
• Women's (Kirsten Wells)

*Matt has also been covering the Juniors role for a while.  Oli Browne has taken on a role coordinating the masters division recently, and we will need to add a formal masters division representative soon.

The Director of Competitions appoints an additional 3-6 members of the committee to provide skills, experience or points of view that might otherwise be under-represented in the group.  Currently the appointed members are:

• Benji Heywood (UKU Event Coordinator)
• Chris Bamford (UKU Administrator, outgoing Uni Coordinator)
• Felix Shardlow
• Richard Roberts
• Adam Batchelor

Key tasks:

• Agree and publish the UKU events calendar
• Maintain and publish UKU Competition Rules
• Agree and define competition formats for main UKU events
• Deal with any questions relating to the rules, and provide rulings in unforeseen circumstances not covered by the written rules
• Act as the first point of contact for complaints related to the competition aspects of ultimate in the UK
• Review and update the competition structure as necessary
• Ensure that UKU competitions and rules are structured in appropriate relationship to EUCS and WUCC competitions and rules
• Work with international competition committees to ensure UKU input to these committees and to ensure visibility of the international programme to UKU

Members of the committee generally can expect a few hours per month of email-based correspondence relating to UKU competitions.  There are of course peaks of activity around the major competitions.  The bulk of the work tends to be reviewing competition formats, and dealing with situations or issues that arise around competitions; but there is an ongoing background activity of ensuring that the competition structures are appropriate for the state of the sport in the UK now and in the future.

We are specifically looking for one member of the committee to take the lead for communicating about the committee's work.

Scheduling

The role of the Scheduling Committee is to:

• Deliver format and schedules for the main outdoor UKU events
• Support TDs (esp. for UKU events) in producing the best possible formats/schedules for their competition
• Provide a resource of tournament formats/schedules for members to use in their own tournaments

Women

The Women’s Committee main aims are to:

• Act as communication group between women players and other areas of UKU – in particular the Board and Competition Committee.
• Encourage and promote all aspects of women’s ultimate – in particular to support growth in the number of women players
• Take responsibility for rules and competition structure questions that are specific to the Women division.
• Maintain and update the content in the Women’s area of the UKU website.

The Women’s committee is run using an “approved volunteer” system.  The approval process is handled by the existing committee.

Look here for more information about the committee's goals and the current members.

GB Committee

The Board of Directors of UK Ultimate is responsible for setting objectives that will, among other things (such as keeping the organisation’s finances watertight) develop Ultimate in the UK. UK Ultimate has several sub-committees that have delegated authority for handling the majority of the work within their area of responsibility.  At the end of 2012, the Board agreed to set up a new committee to oversee the running of the GB teams. Initially this was comprised of Si Hill, Ali Smith and Barry O’Kane. In 2014, Georgie Davin (nee Winborn) has also moved onto the committee as one of the Board's representatives as Barry O'Kane recently resigned from the board.  The committee reports to the Board on a regular basis and seeks the Board’s advice and clarification where necessary.

The purpose of the GB Committee is several fold and includes the following, although this is not an exhaustive list:

• to select team managers for each GB team and then work with them throughout their tenure to ensure the managers stay aligned with the objectives of UK Ultimate and the GB Ultimate Programme;
• to make decisions that affect all GB squads so that they are handled in a fair and consistent (where appropriate) way across all the teams, and to take this load off the various team managers e.g. selecting national team uniform supplier;
• to oversee the finances of the GB programme to ensure that costs are not excessive and again consistent and fair across all teams; although there may be differences between age group costs depending on location etc of the tournament;
• to bring in other people on a temporary basis to consult with if their skills, knowledge or experience were required to help make a decision (eg around manager selection, financial advice, medical advice etc)
• to set the foundations for the development a performance pathway that runs from juniors through to masters divisions that will assist with increasing the level of GB players and their performance at major Championships whilst ensuring that the UK Ultimate community continues to grow and develop at lower levels.

For more details see the Terms of Reference.

Committee Roles

GB Committee Chairperson

• Ensuring timelines are adhered to
• Ensuring good communication and reporting across all GB groups
• Chairing meetings - includes meeting scheduling, agenda planning (forward planner - big events for next 10 years and more detailed for next 1-3, 1-5)
• Reviewing Terms of Reference
• Ensuing accurate notes from meetings
• Ensuring regular report to Board
• Creating systems and processes to support consistency
• Clarification of what decisions are made by who eg what decisions coaches make and what needs to come to GBC or other is the responsibility of one of the other cross-squad operational roles.

Junior

The Junior Ultimate committee, led by the Junior Coordinator is responsible for:

• Managing and coaching GB Junior squads
• Administrating UKU Junior tournaments
• Developing Youth Ultimate
• Promoting the work of Youth Ultimate
• Managing the finance and funraising of Youth Ultimate

The committee has set targets to be a world leader in Youth Ultimate. To achieve these targets we need dedicated volunteers across the UK, to contribute their time and effort towards the work of the Junior Committee.

The Junior Committee is currently recuiting for a number of positions.

• Communication & Enquiries Officer
• Junior Director of Competitions
• Junior Committee Treasurer
• Publicity (PR)
• Fundraiser
• Youth Ultimate Development Group

If any of these roles look appealing to you, please read the job descriptions and
submit an email of interest (including who you are, your experience, and a brief about why you believe you could make a difference in that role) to: uk_jr_ultimate@yahoogroups.com

If you would like to support the committee but do not wish to apply for one of the positions above, please submit an email of interest (including who you are, your experience, and a brief explanation of what area you would like to help in) to: uk_jr_ultimate@yahoogroups.com

These roles are a great opportunity to be a change maker and really move Ultimate forward in the UK. They are also a great tool to fatten up someone’s C.V. There are countless stories about volunteers in Ultimate roles such as these who have ended up capturing the attention of employers, universities, etc! Its win-win.

University

The UKU University Coordinators Committee is responsible for University Ultimate.  The main tasks are:

• Running the tournament allocation process for UKU University Championships: Regionals and Nationals, indoors and outdoors across open, women and mixed divisions
• Providing advice/interpretation/adjudication on eligibility and roster questions
• Supporting regional development of university ultimate

London Ultimate

Here you'll be able to find information about London Ultimate, a sub-section of UK Ultimate that is organised by players in London, for players in London.

As well as continuing to run and evolve the established London Summer and Winter Leagues, London Ultimate also aims to assist the UKU in further developing Ultimate in London.

Current initiatives include, but are not limited to:

• establishing regular Corporate Ultimate tournaments;


• establishing a regular Indoor League;


• establishing regular Pick Up sessions;


• establishing regular 'Complete Beginners' sessions;


• becoming more involved in the development of Junior and Schools programmes;


• increasing the profile of Ultimate.

Medical Team

We are fortunate to have the support of Dr Usamah Jannoun, our Chief Medical Advisor, and a group of physiotherapists and osteopaths that support UK Ultimate and in particular our Great Britain teams.

The team is led by Dr Jannoun, and also includes: Monica Franke, Clare Whittingham, Andy Kelly, Jo Vokes.

Dr Usamah Jannoun MD FFSEM (UK) DMS-Med DSportEx-Med was appointed to the voluntary role of Chief Medical Advisor for UK Ultimate in 2007.

Usamah has worked with sportsmen and recreational athletes for over 15 years in the UK and abroad (Switzerland, Germany, Bermuda) and brings with him a wealth of clinical experience. A keen sportsman himself, his interest lay in Sport and Exercise Medicine and his philosophy is to keep his patients active and fit. He works full-time as a Sport Physician in London amongst a team of leading UK physicians. He is a keen practitioner of many techniques, uses Ultrasound and MRI as diagnostic tools and traditional Orthopaedic and Osteopathic techniques of treatment as well as acupuncture and spinal pain relieving injections.

Usamah teaches and lectures both nationally and internationally to a wide audience in Musculoskeletal and Sport and Exercise Medicine. He is Clinical Tutor for BASEM, the Bath University Postgraduate Diploma/MSc in Sport and Exercise Medicine and to the British Institute of Musculoskeletal Medicine (BIMM) modular courses attended by mostly GPs and Sports Physicians. He is instructor to the national Peripheral Injection Road Show for physicians and has taught senior physiotherapists on the Society of Orthopaedic Medicine (SOM) injection courses.

Usamah's mostly works with the GB teams at the moment. The plan is that gradually the team will be able to help us improve the medical/physio cover at UKU (and other) tournaments, and provide information for all UKU members.

Coach Educators

The role of the Coach Educator team is to:

• Deliver UKU Coaching courses
• Progress the extension and development of the UKU Coaching Scheme

Members of the Coach Educator team are appointed by invitation from the existing group on the basis of playing and coaching experience.

SOTG Committee

“The integrity of Ultimate depends on each player's responsibility to uphold the Spirit of the Game, and this responsibility should remain paramount."

Ultimate relies upon self officiating and the spirit of the game (SOTG). As ultimate grows in the UK we get the benefit of more teams, better players, stronger GB squads, more schools playing and more widespread recognition. We want to make sure that we also retain the SOTG that marks ultimate out a unique team sport.

UK Ultimate has set up this committee to help with the longer term protection and promotion of SOTG. There is a risk that as the sport grows there will be pressures to step away from our unique position. Comments such as 'we can't get into the Olympics without referees' or 'I train like a professional athlete so I don't want teams I play against getting away with cheating' could become more common.

The aim of the committee is not to get involved in one-off SOTG 'incidents' but rather to frame UKU's policies so that we can set up a structure that promotes SOTG and aims to improve it. For example we get invovled with the WFDF SOTG committee to try to make sure that the scoring system works and is used and we aim to encourage education to ensure that future generations of ultimate players also learn how to play in a spirited manner.

Some of the work coming up will be to push forwards policies to deal with teams and players that may have low SOTG scores and to create improved tools for recording scores. In the future we also want to produce more information explaining SOTG (e.g. videos, online advice) and carry out surveys of UK players' opinions of SOTG.

Current Committe Members:

Temporary Committees

From time to time the board appoints a small group of people to deal with a specific question or issue.  

Most commonly this is done as a selection mechanism for coach, captain, and/or management positions for the GB teams.  In this case the usual approach is to delegate the task of considering applications to a small group of players or ex-players with significant experience of involvement with GB teams, but who have little or no personal involvement or interest in any of the applications.  The group then makes a recommendation to the Board.